National Epics Part 10

"Too brave! thy valor yet will cause thy death.

Thou hast no pity on thy tender child Nor me, unhappy one, who soon must be Thy widow. All the Greeks will rush on thee To take thy life. A happier lot were mine, If I must lose thee, to go down to earth, For I shall have no hope when thou art gone,-- Nothing but sorrow. Father have I none, And no dear mother. Great Achilles slew My father when he sacked the populous town Of the Cilicians,--Thebe with high gates.

'T was there he smote Eetion, yet forbore To make his arms a spoil; he dared not that, But burned the dead with his bright armor on, And raised a mound above him. Mountain-nymphs, Daughters of aegis-bearing Jupiter, Came to the spot and planted it with elms.

Seven brothers had I in my father's house, And all went down to Hades in one day.

Achilles the swift-footed slew them all Among their slow-paced bullocks and white sheep.

My mother, princess on the woody slopes Of Placos, with his spoils he bore away, And only for large ransom gave her back.

But her Diana, archer-queen, struck down Within her father's palace. Hector, thou Art father and dear mother now to me, And brother and my youthful spouse besides.

In pity keep within the fortress here, Nor make thy child an orphan nor thy wife A widow. Post thine army near the place Of the wild fig-tree, where the city-walls Are low and may be scaled. Thrice in war The boldest of the foe have tried the spot,-- The Ajaces and the famed Idomeneus, The two chiefs born to Atreus, and the brave Tydides, whether counselled by some seer Or prompted to the attempt by their own minds."

Then answered Hector, great in war: "All this I bear in mind, dear wife; but I should stand Ashamed before the men and long-robed dames Of Troy, were I to keep aloof and shun The conflict, coward-like. Not thus my heart Prompts me, for greatly have I learned to dare And strike among the foremost sons of Troy, Upholding my great father's fame and mine; Yet well in my undoubting mind I know The day shall come in which our sacred Troy, And Priam, and the people over whom Spear-bearing Priam rules, shall perish all.

But not the sorrows of the Trojan race, Nor those of Hecuba herself, nor those Of royal Priam, nor the woes that wait My brothers many and brave,--who all at last, Slain by the pitiless foe, shall lie in dust,-- Grieve me so much as thine, when some mailed Greek Shall lead thee weeping hence, and take from thee Thy day of freedom. Thou in Argos then Shalt at another's bidding ply the loom, And from the fountain of Messeis draw Water, or from the Hypereian spring, Constrained unwilling by thy cruel lot.

And then shall some one say who sees thee weep, 'This was the wife of Hector, most renowned Of the horse-taming Trojans, when they fought Around their city.' So shall some one say, And thou shalt grieve the more, lamenting him Who haply might have kept afar the day Of thy captivity. O let the earth Be heaped above my head in death before I hear thy cries as thou art borne away!"

So speaking, mighty Hector stretched his arms To take the boy; the boy shrank crying back To his fair nurse's bosom, scared to see His father helmeted in glittering bra.s.s, And eying with affright the horsehair plume That grimly nodded from the lofty crest.

At this both parents in their fondness laughed; And hastily the mighty Hector took The helmet from his brow and laid it down Gleaming upon the ground, and, having kissed His darling son and tossed him up in play, Prayed thus to Jove and all the G.o.ds of heaven:-- "O Jupiter and all ye deities, Vouchsafe that this my son may yet become Among the Trojans eminent like me, And n.o.bly rule in Ilium. May they say, 'This man is greater than his father was!'

When they behold him from the battle-field Bring back the b.l.o.o.d.y spoil of the slain foe,-- That so his mother may be glad at heart."

So speaking, to the arms of his dear spouse He gave the boy; she on her fragrant breast Received him, weeping as she smiled. The chief Beheld, and, moved with tender pity, smoothed Her forehead gently with his hand, and said:-- "Sorrow not thus, beloved one, for me.

No living man can send me to the shades Before my time; no man of woman born, Coward or brave, can shun his destiny.

But go thou home, and tend thy labors there,-- The web, the distaff,--and command thy maids To speed the work. The cares of war pertain To all men born in Troy, and most to me."

Thus speaking, mighty Hector took again His helmet, shadowed with the horsehair plume, While homeward his beloved consort went, Oft looking back, and shedding many tears.

Soon was she in the s.p.a.cious palace-halls Of the man-queller Hector. There she found A troop of maidens,--with them all she shared Her grief; and all in his own house bewailed The living Hector, whom they thought no more To see returning from the battle-field, Safe from the rage and weapons of the Greeks.

_Bryant's Translation, Book VI._

THE ODYSSEY.

"The surge and thunder of the Odyssey."

The Odyssey relates the adventures of Ulysses on his return to Ithaca after the Trojan war.

It consists of twenty-four books, the first four of which are sometimes known as the Telemachia, because Telemachus is the princ.i.p.al figure.

The difference in style of the Iliad and Odyssey has caused some critics to a.s.sert that the latter is not the work of Homer; this is accounted for, however, by the difference of subject, and it is probable that the Odyssey, though of a later date, is the work of the same hand, "the work of Homer's old age,--an epic bathed in a mellow light of sunset."

If the Odyssey alone had come down to us, its authors.h.i.+p would have pa.s.sed unquestioned, for the poem is so compact, its plot so carefully planned and so skilfully carried out, that there can be no doubt that it is the work of one hand.

The Odyssey is as great a work of art as the Iliad, and is even more popular; for the Odyssey is a domestic romance, and as such appeals to a larger audience than a tale of war alone,--the romance of the wandering Ulysses and the faithful Penelope. Interwoven with it are the ever-popular fairy tales of Ulysses's wanderings and descriptions of home life. It is marked by the same pagan enjoyment of life, the same freshness and charm that lend enchantment to the Iliad.

BIBLIOGRAPHY AND CRITICISM, THE ODYSSEY.

F. B. Jevons's History of Greek Literature, 1886, pp. 17-25;

A. Lang's Homer and the Epic, 1893, chaps. 8-13;

J. A. Symonds's Studies of the Greek Poets, ed. 3, 1893;

J. E. Harrison's Myths of the Odyssey in Art and Literature, 1882;

W. J. Stillman's On the Track of Ulysses, 1888;

F. W. Newman's The Authors.h.i.+p of the Odyssey (in his Miscellanies, vol.

v.);

J. Spence's Essay on Pope's Translation of the Odyssey, 1837.

STANDARD ENGLISH TRANSLATIONS, THE ODYSSEY.

The Odyssey, Tr. into English blank verse by W. C. Bryant, 2 vols., 1871;

The Odyssey, Tr. according to the Greek, with introduction and notes by George Chapman, ed. 2, 2 vols., 1874;

The Odyssey, Tr. by William Cowper;

The Odyssey, Tr. by G. H. Palmer, 1894 (prose);

The Odyssey, Tr. by Alexander Pope, with notes by Rev. T. W. A. Buckley, n. d.;

The Odyssey, Tr. by S. H. Butcher and A. Lang, 1879 (prose).

THE STORY OF THE ODYSSEY.

After the fall of Troy, Agamemnon returned to Argos, where he was treacherously slain by Aegisthus, the corrupter of his wife; Menelaus reached Sparta in safety, laden with spoil and reunited to the beautiful Helen; Nestor resumed the rule of Pylos, but Ulysses remained absent from Ithaca, where his wife Penelope still grieved for him, though steadfast in her belief that he would return. One hundred and fourteen suitors, princes from Dulichium, Samos, Zacynthus, and Ithaca, determined to wed Penelope that they might obtain the rich possessions of Ulysses, spent their time in revelling in his halls and wasting his wealth, thinking in this way to force Penelope to wed some one of them.

Penelope, as rich in resources as was her crafty husband, announced to them that she would wed when she had woven a funeral garment for Laertes, the father of Ulysses. During the day she wove industriously, but at night she unravelled what she had done that day, so that to the expectant suitors the task seemed interminable. After four years her artifice was revealed to the suitors by one of her maids, and she was forced to find other excuses to postpone her marriage. In the mean time, her son Telemachus, now grown to manhood, disregarded by the suitors on account of his youth, and treated as a child by his mother, was forced to sit helpless in his halls, hearing the insults of the suitors and seeing his rich possessions wasted.

Having induced Jove to end the sufferings of Ulysses, Pallas caused Hermes to be dispatched to Calypso's isle to release the hero, while she herself descended to Ithaca in the guise of Mentes. There she was received courteously by the youth, who sat unhappy among the revellers. At a table apart from the others, Telemachus told the inquiring stranger who they were who thus wasted his patrimony.

"Something must needs be done speedily," said Mentes, "and I shall tell thee how to thrust them from thy palace gates. Take a s.h.i.+p and go to Pylos to inquire of the aged and wise Nestor what he knows of thy father's fate.

Thence go to Menelaus, in Sparta; he was the last of all the mailed Greeks to return home. If thou hear encouraging tidings, wait patiently for a year. At the end of that time, if thy father come not, celebrate his funeral rites, let thy mother wed again, and take immediate steps for the destruction of the suitor band. Thou art no longer a child; the time has come for thee to a.s.sert thyself and be a man."

Telemachus, long weary of inactivity, was pleased with this advice, and at once announced to the incredulous suitors his intention of going to learn the fate of his father. A boat was procured and provided with a crew by the aid of Pallas, and provisioned from the secret store-room guarded by the old and faithful servant Eurycleia. From among the treasures of Ulysses--garments, heaps of gold and bra.s.s, and old and delicate wines--Telemachus took sweet wine and meal to be conveyed to the s.h.i.+p at night, and instructing Eurycleia not to tell his mother of his absence until twelve days had pa.s.sed, he departed as soon as sleep had overcome the suitors. Pallas, in the guise of Mentor, accompanied him.

His courage failed him, however, as they approached the sh.o.r.e of Pylos, where Nestor and his people were engaged in making a great sacrifice to Neptune. "How shall I approach the chief?" he asked. "Ill am I trained in courtly speech."